Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its First Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as network connectivity and connection speeds, attack traffic, and broadband adoption and availability, among many others.

The First Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report includes new observations on "account checker" attacks targeting e-commerce sites and the impact on Akamai traffic from events including the death of Hugo Chavez, announcement of the new Pope, and undersea cable disruptions. The report also reviews mobile browser usage by network type based on data from Akamai IO.

Highlights from Akamai's First Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report:

Global Internet Penetration

More than 733 million unique IPv4 addresses from 243 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, an increase of 3.1 percent over the previous quarter and 10 percent year over year. Since a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases – such as when users access the Web through a firewall or proxy server – Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.

Among the top 10 countries that connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in the first quarter, quarterly growth ranged from 0.7 percent in Germany to 5.3 percent in China. Across the full set of observed countries/regions worldwide, nearly 75 percent saw a quarterly increase in unique IP address counts.

Year-over-year, the number of global unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai grew by 10 percent – an increase of more than 73 million over the first quarter of 2012. Among the top 10 countries, yearly growth ranged from 1 percent in the United States to double-digit growth in the United Kingdom (11 percent), Russia (15 percent), Italy (20 percent), China (20 percent) and Brazil (38 percent). Worldwide, nearly 75 percent of countries/regions had higher unique IP address counts year-over-year.

Attack Traffic and Top Ports Attacked

Akamai maintains a distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet that log connection attempts, which the company classifies as attack traffic. Based on the data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. It is important to note, however, that the originating country as identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in which an attacker resides. For example, an individual in the United States may be launching attacks from compromised systems anywhere in the world.

Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 177 unique countries/regions during the first quarter of 2013, the same number that was observed in the fourth quarter of 2012. While China kept its position as the single-largest volume source of observed traffic with 34 percent of the total (down from 41 percent in the previous quarter), Indonesia took over second place with 21 percent of observed traffic (up from 0.7 percent in the previous quarter). The United States dropped from second to third with 8.3 percent of observed traffic (down from 10 percent in the previous quarter).

The top 10 countries/regions generated more than 80 percent of the observed attack traffic during the quarter. More than half of the total observed attack traffic originated from China and Indonesia.

Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) continued to be the most targeted port in the first quarter, receiving 23 percent of observed attack traffic. Port 80 (WWW HTTP) was second at 14 percent, with a majority of these attacks observed to be originating in Indonesia.

Observations on DDoS Attacks

Starting in the fourth quarter of 2012, the State of the Internet Report includes insight into DDoS attacks based on reports from Akamai customers. In the first quarter of 2013, Akamai customers reported 208 attacks, up slightly from the 200 reported in the previous quarter. Of those attacks, 35 percent targeted Enterprise customers; 32 percent were focused on Commerce customers; 22 percent on Media customers; 7 percent on High Tech customers; and 4 percent targeted Public Sector customers. Attacks were reported by 154 different organizations in the first quarter of 2013.

‘Account Checker' Attacks

In the first quarter of 2013, Akamai observed attempted account takeover behavior for numerous e-commerce organizations that resulted from reuse of credentials obtained from other sites. Using automated tools known as "account checkers," attackers can quickly determine valid user ID/password combinations across a large number of e-commerce sites. Once an account is breached, attackers can collect a user's personal data and credit card information to use for further fraud.

Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds

Quarter-over-quarter, the global average connection speed rose 4 percent to 3.1 Mbps (up from 2.9 Mbps). A total of 117 countries/regions that qualified for inclusion saw average connection speeds increase this quarter, ranging from 0.7 percent in Kuwait to 75 percent in Guatemala.

Year-over-year, average connection speeds grew by 17 percent, with eight of the top 10 countries/regions growing by double-digit percentages. Around the world, 123 qualifying countries/regions saw a year-over-year increase in average connection speeds, ranging from 1.4 percent in Oman to 122 percent in Iraq.

Global average peak connection speeds increased 9.2 percent to 18.4 Mbps during the first quarter of 2013. Hong Kong was again number one at 63.6 Mbps, an increase of 9 percent over the previous quarter.

"This quarter's State of the Internet Report shows continued positive growth in terms of Internet and broadband adoption worldwide. We have seen overall increases in average and peak connection speeds along with greater broadband penetration on both a quarterly and annual basis," said David Belson, the report's editor. "However, the levels of malicious activity we've observed show no signs of abating, as evidenced by the ongoing rise in DDoS attacks. This reinforces the continued need for vigilance by organizations that are conducting business and maintaining a presence on the Internet."

Mobile Connectivity

In the first quarter of 2013, average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network operators ranged from a high of 8.6 Mbps to a low of 0.4 Mbps. Nine operators demonstrated average connection speeds in the broadband (>4 Mbps) range while 64 more operators showed average connection speeds above 1 Mbps. Data collected by Ericsson indicates that the volume of mobile data traffic doubled from the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, and grew 19 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013.

An initial release of an updated data source for Akamai IO occurred in mid-February 2013, resulting in significant changes in observed device/browser adoption levels. For the first half of the quarter, mobile devices on cellular networks using the Android Webkit accounted for just over 41 percent of total requests, while Apple Mobile Safari accounted for 38 percent. In the second half of the quarter, Android Webkit was responsible for nearly 44 percent of requests and Apple Mobile Safari accounted for just over 30 percent. When measuring mobile devices across all network types, Apple Mobile Safari accounted for approximately 60% and Android Webkit was responsible for 20-33% of requests.

Akamai in 60 Seconds

Akamai has also released "Akamai in 60 Seconds," an online visualization presenting a snapshot of the broad range of activity occurring on the Akamai Intelligent Platform. Available at www.akamai.com/60seconds, the dynamic graphic highlights peak values for metrics such as video streaming, page views, route optimization calculations and DNS lookups among many others, as measured across a 60-second time period.

About the Akamai State of the Internet Report

Each quarter, Akamai publishes a "State of the Internet" report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit state of the internet report. To download the figures from the First Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report, please visit http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q113_figures.zip.

About Akamai

Akamai® is the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company's solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.